


Open Windows

by lea_hazel



Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: 7KPP Prompt Fill, Arland, Arranged Marriage, Background Character Death, Brother-Sister Relationships, Corsetry, Corval, Cultural Differences, Domestic Fluff, Extended Families, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Female Friendship, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Gender Roles, Hair Dyeing, Haircuts, Hise, Introspection, Jiyel, Post-Summit (Seven Kingdoms), Pre-Canon, Pregnancy, Reunions, Revaire, Sharing a Bed, Sister-Sister Relationship, Skalt, Writer's Block
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23672179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: A collection of prompt responses for quarantine month from fyeah7kpp on Tumblr. Many characters, many pairings. Mostly short snippets of dialogue or bits of fluff and character studies. Content notes on a per-chapter basis.
Relationships: Anaele/Revaire Widow, Arland Princess & Constance, Arland Princess (Seven Kingdoms)/Original Character(s), Clarmont/Revaire Widow, Corval Lady & Queen of Revaire, Corval Lady/Gisette, Emmett/Hise Pirate, Hamin/Jiyel Scholar, Revaire Widow (Seven Kingdoms) & Original Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	1. Night (Allegra of Revaire/Clarmont)

They stayed up late, drinking and talking. Partly because they both knew they had a limited time together, before duty called them apart, and because the late Baron Namaire had kept a really exceptional cellar. Allegra had kindly dismissed the last of the staff to their beds before launching into another long-winded story of her sisters’ youthful escapades. When the story wound down, she took up the candelabra and led him a sure path up to the old house’s second story.

Halfway down the main corridor she paused, hesitated.

“What is it?” he asked.

Allegra turned, and the flickering candles in her hand cast half her face into shadow. “I had the maids open one of the guest bedrooms for you,” she said. “You can stay here, if you like–“ she tapped the wooden door with her right hand– “or you could stay with me.”

Clarmont opened his mouth to answer, hesitated, then tried again. “Your staff won’t have anything to say about that?”

Her smile was thin and sharp as a knife’s edge. “Not to us, they won’t,” she assured him. “Even I can’t keep servants from gossiping, but no one would say anything to my face.”

“It doesn’t bother you?” he asked again.

“That servants talk?” She shrugged. “Not so long as most of what they have to say is good. If they have material complaints, well, that’s my responsibility as their employer to correct.”

Clarmont smiled and shook his head ruefully. “You are a most unusual woman, Lady Allegra.”

Allegra raised an eyebrow. “You still haven’t answered my question.”


	2. Soar (Christabel of Hise/Emmett)

“The wind isn’t too high?” asked Clarine anxiously, tying and retying the ribbons of her hat.

Christabel threw back her head and laughed. “That’s half the fun, you know.”

“We did spend a long time making these,” Emmett pointed out, hefting his kite to get a better grip on its thin, wooden spine. “It would be a shame if they blew away the moment we launched them, or broke, or tore.”

“Everything in nature has some uncertainty to it,” said Christabel, quoting her father, “and the wind most of all,” and her mother.

“But the wind might be a trifle _less_ uncertain tomorrow,” said Clarine, “or next week.”

“I would rather risk losing the kites,” said Bel, “than hold them in my hands and watch them fail to take off, for lack of wind. The uncertainty is part of the fun. You worry too much, Clarine.”

Emmett patted his sister’s arm and said, “If they break, we can always make new ones.”


	3. Breathe (Verity of Arland/OC)

“I hate these more than anything else,” said Verity resentfully, turning back to the regard herself in the vanity mirror of her guest room.

“Arland fashions are not so restrictive?” asked Brielle, running a light finger over the laces running down her back. “Here, let me loosen this for you.”

“N-no,” said Verity, consideringly. “They’re quite as awful, in their own way. Not as narrow, but heavier. But these Revairian corsets, they pervert my figure in a way that the Arlish ones never did.”

Brielle pulled the ribbons this and that way and asked, “There, is that easier?”

Verity drew in a deep breath, and felt the boning slip loose around her ribs, belly and hips. “Much.”

“I see what you mean,” said Brielle, once she had struggled out of her most restrictive garments and laid them conscientiously away. “You’re quite a different woman out of your finery than in it.”

“Not a less interesting one, I hope,” said Verity, sinking into a seat by the fire.

Brielle’s eyes shone in the low firelight. “Quite the opposite.”


	4. Shadow (Allegra of Revaire)

Allegra sipped her wine peacefully, pinching the glass stem between thumb and forefinger. “I don’t see any similarity,” she remarked dryly.

“I did not mean you were similar, dear Allegra,” said Leonie, shifting her own glass from one ringed hand to the other, the better to repose against the arm of her chair. “Only that you have certain qualities in common.”

Both their eyes were fixed on the dais, where the Princess of Revaire sat at her mother’s right hand, presiding over the august assembly. Pale and petite, she was fastidiously dressed in powder blue satin, shimmering and liquid. With a small, fixed smile on her pink lips, her eyes roamed, half-lidded over the crowd, resting only for a moment on any one guest. Allegra had avoided her scrutiny thus far, which was to her liking.

“What qualities would those be?” asked Allegra, more dryly still.

Lady Leonie hemmed and hawed, in her delicate, genteel way.

Allegra laughed a low laugh. “You needn’t be put out,” she said. “I’ve had much worse said about me, I’m sure.”

“I don’t think poorly of you at all, dear Allegra,” said Leonie. “I rather think– Our dear Princess– Well, Allegra.”

Allegra was too amused to interrupt her musings. Leonie was, in the usual course of things, only eloquent when she spoke of frivolous things. She was not prone to deep cogitation, or if she was, was rarely inclined to share the conclusions of her meditations. This occasion was too rare and fascinating to interrupt.

“What do you think, dear Allegra,” said Leonie at last, “your life would be like, if you had no younger sisters?”

Allegra detached her eyes from her wine glass and glanced back at Princess Gisette who, at that very moment, was looking in her direction. Their eyes locked briefly, and the Princess smiled a slow, wide smile, equal parts treacle and poison. Caught, Allegra raised her glass and nodded slightly.

When the moment passed, she turned back to Leonie and took a fortifying sip of wine before saying, “I take your point.” 


	5. Solid (Yaling of Jiyel/Hamin)

The ports of Hise were both like and unlike those of the more civilized – in their own eyes – nations. Ships came in to load and unload, just like any other port, and when the sailors disembarked they were anticipated by friends and family, waiting for their homecoming. In that way, they were very like, even if the waiting crowd was notably smaller. Those pirates who had aged out of the profession or were too badly injured to sail tended to populate the dockside bars, if they had not detached to head inland, to Farine. Women were not scarce, but they were most of them crew members themselves. Children were few.

Altogether, Yaling felt very strange and alone as she waited for her husband’s ship to come in. This was their first long separation since marrying, but Hamin could no longer defer a trade run to bring necessary supplies from Arland, as Hise was too small and many of the islands too rocky to grow much of their own grain. It was all very sensible and of course Yaling, being both rational and well-informed, agreed that it was necessary. That did not mean she had to _like_ it.

Yaling had spent her first twenty five years in Jiyel adjusting herself mentally to the way others viewed her. She’d thought, truly believed, that she was immune to caring what anyone else thought, that she was too evolved to feel the sting of strange eyes on her and wonder whether or not she belonged. Hise was her home, now. Hise was home to many stranger people than her, even if she happened to be the only lady waiting by the docks in a gown that brushed the street with its hems, her head wrapped all about with a diaphanous black veil. It was afternoon, and the sun was very bright. She couldn’t be too careful.

She was still caught in her musings when she felt a hand on her shoulder, which startled her so badly that she jumped, what felt like half a foot at least.

“All right, Glitter?” asked Hamin once she had settled down.

He was both smiling and frowning, in that way he did when he was very concerned and trying to play if off with a laugh. He reached up and twitched her veil, which had slipped off, back into place.

“I suppose I was daydreaming,” said Yaling, glancing this way and that to ascertain that she had not accidentally caused a scene. “Very silly of me.”

“Not at all,” said Hamin seriously. “Especially not if you were daydreaming about me.”

She swatted his shoulder with the trailing edge of her veil, and he laughed aloud.

“There, isn’t that much better?” he asked, linking their arms together.

“Much,” she agreed. “I feel more like myself, already.”


	6. Reunion (Felicity of Arland)

The reunion wasn’t quite what she could have hoped for.

On her arrival, Felicity was shepherded immediately into a grand and richly appointed parlor, where the Empress of Corval held forth to her ladies-in-waiting. The ladies, strangers to her all, rose from their seats when she entered, though the Empress remained in her chair, tapping her closed fan against the arm rest. Felicity stood at attention for an uncomfortably long moment before the Empress pronounced her acceptable, and sent one of her ladies to fetch Her Highness, the Crown Princess.

Constance was dressed in an unadorned, undyed white gown, a slim golden coronet balanced on her pinned hair. She looked drawn and anxious, but still beautiful, even in her plain mourning.

All Felicity wanted was to run to her sister and throw her arms around her. She held back her tears with difficulty while the Empress pontificated on Constance’s merits, and how much she hoped the Third Prince’s marriage would be luckier than the one that preceded it. It was only when one of her ladies gently coughed into her handkerchief that she remembered that she hadn’t given the new Princess leave to take a seat.

From that moment, Felicity was embraced into the circle of the inner court. She was under the Empress’s auspices now, and there was no more exclusive social set in Corval. Plans for her wedding, a three day affair, had been underway since before she’d departed Vail Isle. Years of stringent Arland upbringing reassured her that she would have no say in the details of the wedding at all, up to and including what she was to wear. Much was made of her clothing, until Constance gently pointed out that, as her personal modiste was idle during her mourning, she could easily take up the cause of making Princess Felicity a properly stylish Corvali wardrobe.

They escaped that room with only just enough time to dress for her first dinner with the imperial family. Constance took her gently by the arm and guided her through the maze of inner corridors, all the way to the suite of rooms she’d been assigned. She paused at the door, just for a moment, before departing for her own rooms.

“We’ll have time to talk tomorrow, I should hope,” she said, looking more tired than ever. “Tell me everything.”

Felicity nodded. “I will.” 


	7. Chill (Selene of Revaire/Ana)

Namaire lay in one of those horrid little northern provinces where it was always wet, sticky summers and sleet and mud in the winter, but it never properly snowed. The winds made winter bitterly cold, though, so Selene had all the warm clothes she could possibly need, even as the wife of the Princess of Skalt. Still, she knew that she could not take everything with her, so she had packed cautiously, and with a cool, pragmatic eye. Ana’s warriors would not care about the fashionable cut of her gowns, only that she was dressed properly for snow and would be kind to their princess.

The border trade post where she was set to meet her escort made as good a transition as any, for the traders who filled the marketplace spoke every language and were variously Revairian like her, Wellish, or Skaltic. It was a right mix of humanity, and at another time she might have been curious to learn how they balanced their disparate ways, but right now she was only impatient. She’d arrived on schedule, three days ago, and since then she’d been twiddling her thumbs with busywork, trying not to imagine a nightmare scenario that would send her back to Namaire until next spring.

Selene was not popular in Namaire. Especially as it was just a matter of time before the barony, title and lands, was settled on one of the king’s benefactors. She was not entitled to inherit it, only the townhouse and the investments that came with it. Oh, she could support herself for a number of seasons at court, certainly, and before her time as a delegate she might have considered that bounty enough. Being told the impossible was now possible, however, had a way of changing one. She could no longer imagine settling for anything less than being Ana’s wife.

Her ear perked up when she caught one of the few words of the Skaltic language that she’s managed to pick up, or maybe it was the familiar intonation of a question that caught her attention. Someone was asking after a yellow-haired girl. Ana had fondly referred to her as such, when she wasn’t calling her _Luna_ , and had patiently listened to her sound out each word until she had learned them all. She stood up hastily and looked around her for the source of the voice.

Well, this was no time for decorum. Selene extracted her right hand from the soft fur muff that had been keeping her cozy, and waved her arm in the air.

Two women with graying hair, both in furs and armor very like Ana’s, pointed her out to each other before setting their jaws and marching her way.

“Greetings,” said one, after exchanging a look between them. “You are here for our princess?”

Selene broke into a relieved smile. “Yes. Yes, I am.”


	8. Boredom (Yaling of Jiyel/Hamin)

The stormy season had driven them all indoors, and the family had retreated together to the big house in Farine that often stood empty all summer. For Yaling this was in some ways a return to normalcy. Her father’s estate was so elevated in the mountains that they often spent winters partly snowed in, with his second wife, her raucous half-brothers, and often some cousins in the mix. Hamin and his three rowdy male cousins gave her a fair idea of what her brothers would be like in ten years, cooped up during bad weather. But all the same, there was something familiar and comforting about it.

Rainy days she spent sequestered in their bedroom, glued to the small desk under the window, using every bit of natural light to write by. Her latest scheme for employment had started off so well, and now suddenly her energy was tapering. She sighed, for what felt like the hundredth time, and set her pen down in its grove by the inkwell.

Hamin popped up behind her in an instant, wrapping his arms around her middle and leaning his chin on her head. “Things not going well, Glitter?”

“Not to plan,” she said, sulkily. “Not to plan _at all_.”

“You were enthused about it yesterday,” he pointed out.

Yaling closed her eyes and leaned back against him. “That was yesterday. Beginnings are easier than endings.”

“Stuck in the middle?” he asked, sympathetically.

“ _Causing_ problems is a lot easier than _solving_ them,” said Yaling and added, with pure sarcasm, “surprisingly.”

“Come get some dinner with me,” suggested Hamin. “A break would do you good.”

She grumbled, but assented. Staring at the unyielding page wasn’t doing her any favors.


	9. Flowing (Yaling of Jiyel)

In the summer, Yaling lost patience and cut her hair. Even braided, it was pooling heavily on the back of her neck, making her sweat in the intensity of the Hise summer heat, making her head and neck muscles ache with its sheer weight. And she was tired of dyeing it. This wasn’t Jiyel, and no one cared what she was or whom she came from.

She cut it to chin length, as short as she could get it and still have an even length, and began to wear a turban even at night while the roots grew in pale flax under the black dye. Six months of summer would be more than enough to see it through. Then she would cut it again and wear it loose, and everyone would be able to see what she was underneath her artifice. Everyone would see that she didn’t care what they thought.

Aunt Pru was baffled, but supportive. She helped her trim the mess she had made into a more sculpted shape, like an odd little mushroom, and remarked admiringly on how fine and soft her hair was.

“It’ll be lovely, when it starts growing in again,” she said, patting her shoulder. “Do you mean to grow it out?”

Yaling shrugged one shoulder, breathing out with a puff. “A little, I think,” she said. “Not as long as it was before. I think I’ll cut it for summer.”

Prudence nodded her understanding. “Come any time if you need help trimming the back,” she said. “Cutting your own hair isn’t easy.”

“At least I won’t need a lady’s maid to comb it anymore,” joked Yaling.

“Yes, you’re remarkably self-sufficient, my dear,” said Prudence.

More softly, she murmured, “I hope Hamin likes it.”

“He will,” said Prudence definitively. “And if he doesn’t to start with, he’ll learn to like it.” 


	10. Laugh (Periwinkle of Jiyel)

“Your sister is very quiet, isn’t she?”

Lady Magnolia, just recently turned fifteen, was sitting primly at the dinner table with her hands clasped in her lap, waiting for the next course to be brought in. To her right, her mother Lady Fern was discussing some dense academic subject with one of her father’s elderly relations. Across from her, her older cousin Jiya was flirting very slightly with the young officers sitting beside her. And to her left was her dinner companion, the man whom she was brought in to entertain, for there were not enough ladies present to host, and Magnolia was – properly speaking – a little too young to be paraded in front of company in this manner.

She nodded solemnly, raising her beautiful dark eyes to her companion, a certain Lord This-or-another whose name she couldn’t be bothered to remember. “You must forgive Periwinkle,” she said, as soft and sweet as you please. “She’s terribly shy in company.”

Her companion harrumphed. “A shame, and a very sad state for a young lady of your family’s caliber, for how is she to make the necessary connections if she won’t speak on her own behalf?”

“Papa says that Periwinkle’s academic work speaks for itself,” said Magnolia, mustering her sweetest smile to speak in defense of her sister.

“Hmm, I _was_ made to understand that her achievements were exceptional, for a girl of her age,” said the man. “Perhaps there’s some hope for her yet, but she must command the skill to defend her achievements, or no one will give her a second look.”

He glanced down the table, giving Periwinkle’s plain blue gown a frankly assessing look, and Magnolia knew instantly that he was judging her sister on the beauty that nature had not seen fit to bestow.

“My lord, you have only to get to know her better, and she’ll reveal the best sides of herself,” she said. “Periwinkle is quite charming, really, when she puts her mind to it.”

The guest harrumphed again, but gave her sister a second, less scalding glance.

“You have to make her laugh, is all there is to it,” said Magnolia persistently. “She’s quite charming when she laughs. A laugh for the ages, everyone says so.” She smiled as brightly and guilelessly as she could.

“Oh, _everyone_ says so, young lady?” asked the man, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice. “If you don’t mind my saying, Lady Periwinkle is very fortunate that she has such a devoted elder sister to speak on her behalf and defend her honor.”

Magnolia laughed. “Your lordship is very kind,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’m the younger of us two.”

“Never!” he said, affecting to look shocked and pressing a hand to his breast. “You’re a very self-assured young thing, Lady Magnolia. It will work in your favor, one day, but mind you don’t become _too_ self-assured. A man doesn’t like to see a conceited lady, especially not one as young and lovely as you.”

Magnolia laughed and thanked him most kindly, not bothering to mention that she had little use or need for gentlemen’s opinions on her assurance, even at the age of fifteen.


	11. Anticipation (Marguerite of Corval)

“I am _not_ looking forward to being a grandmother,” said Queen Violetta dryly, once the men had absented themselves, “I can tell you that much with certainty.”

“No one would think it to look at you, Your Majesty,” replied Marguerite, who knew from experience that sufficiently effusive flattery could soothe the most irascible temper, which the Queen of Revaire was certainly a contender for.

"One hates to feel old," said the Queen with a long-suffering sigh, "but it must be done, I suppose. It's not to be put off. Have you thought of names?"

Marguerite had a list of names as long as her arm, but knew that the decision may not be up to her. "I have some names for girls in mind, but of course we're all hoping for a boy."

"Of course," said Gisette sweetly, not looking up from the letter she was writing.

The Queen poured herself a second glass of cordial and said, "I thought I had heard you say that your father was deceased. I assumed you would press to have a son named after him."

Marguerite and Gisette exchanged a loaded look.

"My father died when I was very young, Your Majesty," said Marguerite delicately. "I hardly knew him, and as the match was arranged by the Empress at the time, my mother and he were not especially close."

Queen Violetta raised an eyebrow. "That seems slim cause to rule out the name. What aren't you saying?"

"You might as well tell her," said Gisette. "Better now than later."

Marguerite sighed. "The Empress of Corval at the time wished stronger ties to the other kingdoms," she explained, "so she pressured several of her ladies-in-waiting into marrying members of those kingdoms' ambassadorial staffs. My father was a younger son in service to the Revairian ambassador. When he-- died, my mother reverted to her own family name, which is the name that I used until recently."

The Queen narrowed her eyes, a thoughtful line drawn between her delicate brows. "And what was your father's surname, if you please?"

Marguerite glanced sidelong at Gisette, who nodded minutely.

"His name was Darius Taryn," she said.

The Queen huffed out a faint, suppressed laugh. "Well, that's one reason not to name the child after him," she said. "Taryn, you say?"

"I looked into the Taryn family, Mama," said Gisette. "They were dissenters. The last Earl of Summervale was Ion Taryn."

"Well, I suppose that's one crisis averted," said the Queen, humming thoughtfully, "but don't think it's evaded my notice, Gisette, that you knew about all this and chose not to reveal it to me, or your father."

Gisette accepted her due with a nod of her pale head, but the quirk in her mouth hinted that she did not expect any punishment to be forthcoming.

"I'm afraid that quite rules out your having any distant relations in Revaire, my dear," said Violetta to Marguerite. "All for the best. We wouldn't want to have any divided loyalties, now, would we?"

"Certainly not, Your Majesty," said Marguerite. "As I said, my mother and father were never close, and I had no knowledge of or familiarity with my paternal relations."

"That does not, however, solve the problem of naming the child," said the Queen.

"We have months yet to dwell on that problem, Mama," said Gisette smoothly. "Shall I read to you?"

The Queen accepted the distraction, and the matter of Marguerite's family tree was laid -- temporarily -- to rest. She wasn't eager to be about when the _King_ found out about it, as she thought he was much more likely to react in temper. But that wasn't really her problem. Gisette and the Queen could decide between the two of them whether and when to reveal the Taryn connection to him. Who knew? It might even turn out an advantage for the royal family. To the best of her limited knowledge, and augmented by Gisette's quiet inquiries, her grandfather had had some kind of distant family ties to the former royal family. With the right words and the right attention, that could turn into a very positive spin.


	12. Safe (Jack of Wellin)

She had jumped over a hedge and run through several shrubberies and hid in the maze for as long as she could, but eventually she was apprehended and dragged back to her uncle's house to clean herself up. Jack sulked all through the bathing ritual, sluicing dirty water and bits of grass and leaf off her skin resentfully. After that, she had to endure an impossibly long primping ceremony, not just being forced into a crisp floral frock but having her hair brushed and styled, none too gently, and pulled back from her forehead with a blue ribbon. She thought she'd been so clever, cutting it too short to tie back.

When the maids finally released her, Jack caught a glimpse of herself in the long looking glass and turned her head away. The girl in the mirror did not look like someone she'd like to talk to, but outside the room her girl-cousins were waiting for her excitedly. They cooed and squealed about how nicely she cleaned up, trading jealous looks and loudly exclaiming over her golden curls. Their mothers, they declared, would be delighted.

Jack, who was thirteen years old, knew by now that they meant their _brothers_ , really.

Two of her oldest cousins seized her from either side, linking their arms together and pasting on artificial smiles. Together, they marched her down the stairs and out into the garden, where a canopy had been set up for the wedding itself. That was when Jack spotted her father in the crowd, talking with her aunt and uncle, and some woman she didn't recognize. He smiled warmly when he saw her, nudging her uncle and gesturing her way. Her uncle smiled, also, but his smile was a lot less reassuring.

The rest of the wedding was even more awful. She'd never seen her cousin Sala looking so miserable. Her aunt and uncle alternated between animated arguments and long stretches of coldly not speaking to each other. Her father was occupied talking to the adults, most of the time, and the only people she had for company were her cousins, who had nothing more interesting to speak about than what the bride was wearing and -- worst of all -- who would be _next_.

It was near the end of the whole awful affair, when most of the adult guests were wine-drunk and the youngest children were yawning conspicuously, that her father finally sought her out.

"Jack, darling," her father said, "you must remember Lady Adrianna. You met her son last year. Lady Adrianna, this is my daughter, Jacqueline."

The lady paid her polite greetings and Jack _tried_ to return them, all the while her heart was sinking. She'd spent a perfectly pleasant afternoon mock-fighting Lachlan with a broken broomstick before he'd been whisked away by his mother to attend his ailing father. Last year, they'd been allowed to be just children. The next time she saw him, he might be looking at her with the same smug smile that Sala's husband gave her when she met him at the altar.

Lady Adrianna quickly excused herself to greet some acquaintances, and her father slung his arm over Jack's shoulders and gave her a quick, conspiratorial sidelong glance. They were watching her aunt and uncle escort Sala and her husband, with fanfare, to their carriage. Sala's face was pinched as though she were eating an unsweetened lemon.

Leopold tipped his head next to her ear and said, "Don't worry, Jack. I'll never let that happen to you."


End file.
